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Top positive review

4.0 out of 5 starsGreat for what it is. Even better with Google Play store side loaded

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2018

I got my Fire HD 8 on release day and set up was a breeze. I side loaded the Google Play store (check Youtube, it's easy) and installed my favorite Google apps, Youtube, Google Play Music, Google 1, Google Drive,Google Docs and a slew of other apps I like from the Play Store that Amazon's app store does not provide and I'm loving the tablet. It's no speed demon but for the price I wasn't looking for cutting edge technology. I also bought the cover and the docking station and switch between the two easily as I retire to my bedroom for the night. I previously was using a Fire 6 tablet and a Samsung Galaxy tab S3. The Kindle Fire 6 was great for it's size and the Galaxy Tab was great (older now, less reliable battery life due to age) for the same reasons but this Kindle Fire HD 8 blends the best of both worlds for me regarding size. It's a nice companion to have near, lets me use the apps that I like, moderate gaming, lots of reading and now having both Amazon Music and Google Play Music, a slew of options for music. If you are looking for a workhorse you're better off with your iPad or mainstream Android tablet . If you are looking for a nice reliable multimedia hub, look no further than this tablet. The price is on point for the features it has provided thus far and I am happy with my purchase. it is a great middle of the road tablet and the price it can't be beat. I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 because there is nothing revolutionary about this tablet. It's not a must have by any means but it fits the casual niche perfectly.

Top critical review

This review is for those stuck between purchasing a Fire 7 or a Fire HD 8 Tablet:

Let me just get this off my chest first. I DO NOT RECOMMEND a Fire 7 AT ALL if your looking for a quality tablet that’s small and inexpensive like I was. The only reasons I can see anyone buying a Fire 7 is if it’s for a very, very young child as a starter tablet or if your an adult who will only use it to read books. Otherwise the Fire HD 8 is going to be your best bet.

The Fire HD 8 is great quality for it’s size and yes even it’s price. It’s the perfect size unlike the Fire 7 which to me really isn’t much larger in screen size than my iPhone 6+. The Fire HD 8 comes with an ample amount of storage to be able to handle whatever updates it throws at you upon setup, and that’s just the 16GB. Anything below 16GB is not enough to handle device updates and allow for storage space for much of anything. There’s not much money saved either in buying a Fire 7 8GB with a micro SD Card, been there, done that and I won’t do it again!

Now onto the fun stuff. The Fire HD 8 is HD! It has a longer battery life, downloads faster, has better sound quality and video quality than the Fire 7. It’s also easier to start up a game and actually play it than the Fire 7. Everything that is possible to do with a Fire HD 8 Tablet is much more fun and less time consuming than a Fire 7. I highly recommend the Fire HD 8 Tablet if aside from reading, gaming and watching videos is also as important.

The only problem I have encountered with both Fire Tablets is their very finicky Location Services. I would have given the Fire HD 8 Five Stars if the Location Services worked better and therefore enabled me to restore from a backup. I will always have to setup as a new device every time I upgrade a device because it takes this brand tablet almost 24 hours to find my location if it even ever does?!

With all of that being said I highly recommend the Fire HD 8 Tablet. Although it’s no iPad by any means. At times I find myself forgetting what device I’m on and that speaks volumes! If you’re like me and enjoy utilizing everything a device has to offer, this one is the only way to go for it’s compact size, the quality and the price!

This review is for those stuck between purchasing a Fire 7 or a Fire HD 8 Tablet:

Let me just get this off my chest first. I DO NOT RECOMMEND a Fire 7 AT ALL if your looking for a quality tablet that’s small and inexpensive like I was. The only reasons I can see anyone buying a Fire 7 is if it’s for a very, very young child as a starter tablet or if your an adult who will only use it to read books. Otherwise the Fire HD 8 is going to be your best bet.

The Fire HD 8 is great quality for it’s size and yes even it’s price. It’s the perfect size unlike the Fire 7 which to me really isn’t much larger in screen size than my iPhone 6+. The Fire HD 8 comes with an ample amount of storage to be able to handle whatever updates it throws at you upon setup, and that’s just the 16GB. Anything below 16GB is not enough to handle device updates and allow for storage space for much of anything. There’s not much money saved either in buying a Fire 7 8GB with a micro SD Card, been there, done that and I won’t do it again!

Now onto the fun stuff. The Fire HD 8 is HD! It has a longer battery life, downloads faster, has better sound quality and video quality than the Fire 7. It’s also easier to start up a game and actually play it than the Fire 7. Everything that is possible to do with a Fire HD 8 Tablet is much more fun and less time consuming than a Fire 7. I highly recommend the Fire HD 8 Tablet if aside from reading, gaming and watching videos is also as important.

The only problem I have encountered with both Fire Tablets is their very finicky Location Services. I would have given the Fire HD 8 Five Stars if the Location Services worked better and therefore enabled me to restore from a backup. I will always have to setup as a new device every time I upgrade a device because it takes this brand tablet almost 24 hours to find my location if it even ever does?!

With all of that being said I highly recommend the Fire HD 8 Tablet. Although it’s no iPad by any means. At times I find myself forgetting what device I’m on and that speaks volumes! If you’re like me and enjoy utilizing everything a device has to offer, this one is the only way to go for it’s compact size, the quality and the price!

I really wanted to like this tablet. I have many friends who have the Kindle Fire and they love it. I had high hopes but so far I'm not loving it. I stayed at a friend's house a month before the newest edition came out. She has 3 Fires, all different sizes. I played on hers and liked them. So much that I was sold on buying one. I decided to get the newest one since it was due out in 3 weeks. The problem I'm having is it's incredibly slow. It takes almost a minute and a half to open the screen from the lock. When it finally does it takes another 45 seconds to a minute to load the apps. That may not sound like a long time but for a tablet it's an eternity. A brand new one at that. I tried to open Amazon store to review this Fire and it sat on a white screen for 3 minutes and 17 seconds. Yes, I timed it. Once the Amazon logo showed up it was another minute before the rest of the page loaded. Then I clicked on the menu to pull up my orders and it remained unresponsive. I put it down and picked up my phone to leave this review. As I type this it still has not accepted my command and is frozen. I don't even have a lot loaded. Most apps on it are the ones that come hard coded on it. I've been trying to give it time to see if it will get better but I'm tired of fussing with it. There are times it works just fine but most of the time it's very, very slow. IF I decide to get another one, I'm going one generation down. This one is not great. I'm beginning to think I may have gotten a dud but then I read other reviews and it seems this generation is struggling. Very sad because I wanted to like it. It's back to Samsung for me.

UPDATE: First I want to say Amazon's customer service is absolutely top notch! I received a phone call from them about 10 minutes after leaving this review. They did not try to "sell" me on keeping it nor did they patronize me and ask me to trouble shoot. I did inform them I had done all the basics of rebooting, factory reset, etc. There had apparently been an update that got stuck and didn't fully complete. I completed it with his help and he asked me to give it a couple days. I did. Again, I had hoped that was going to fix the problem. Sadly, it didn't. I received a follow up call from them a few days later and I told them I was still having the slowness problem. They graciously offered for me to return it and they would refund me. Overall, though I was sad to have to return the Fire, Amazon made the experience better with jumping into action.

I got my Fire HD 8 on release day and set up was a breeze. I side loaded the Google Play store (check Youtube, it's easy) and installed my favorite Google apps, Youtube, Google Play Music, Google 1, Google Drive,Google Docs and a slew of other apps I like from the Play Store that Amazon's app store does not provide and I'm loving the tablet. It's no speed demon but for the price I wasn't looking for cutting edge technology. I also bought the cover and the docking station and switch between the two easily as I retire to my bedroom for the night. I previously was using a Fire 6 tablet and a Samsung Galaxy tab S3. The Kindle Fire 6 was great for it's size and the Galaxy Tab was great (older now, less reliable battery life due to age) for the same reasons but this Kindle Fire HD 8 blends the best of both worlds for me regarding size. It's a nice companion to have near, lets me use the apps that I like, moderate gaming, lots of reading and now having both Amazon Music and Google Play Music, a slew of options for music. If you are looking for a workhorse you're better off with your iPad or mainstream Android tablet . If you are looking for a nice reliable multimedia hub, look no further than this tablet. The price is on point for the features it has provided thus far and I am happy with my purchase. it is a great middle of the road tablet and the price it can't be beat. I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 because there is nothing revolutionary about this tablet. It's not a must have by any means but it fits the casual niche perfectly.

I would like to give this first hd 8 a half star but it won't let me. I've had this thing for 9 days and have spent several hours each day looking for help as to why this device will not stay connected to wifi. It continuously searches for a connection even after you have connected to your home wifi. It stays connected for only 30 seconds and drops the connection then it will reconnect and drop again then reconnect and drop again then reconnect and drop again......you get the idea. You cannot even chat with amazon tech support because, you guessed it, it won't stay connected to the WiFi. Yes I have reset modem, fire hd and even turned off said 2.4GHz on my router. Nope nothing works. I would like to return this product for a refund but I throw out the packaging the day I got the thing. My recommendation is to purchase a different product.

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Got the new fire 8 last night and tried to set it up with the apps that I had used on my previous fire tablets. It appears that apps for EA are not longer available. They do not appear in my library nor in the appstore. A rep from Amazon told me that some apps that previously worked are not longer compatible with the new fire. When I commented about not being able to use an app that I got via Amazon and spent money in using Amazon coins, I was more or less told "oh well".

The hardware in this tablet is no different than the 2016 version. It has the same processor and memory but is running with a newer version of Amazon's FireOS.

The big change with this year's HD 8 is the addition of new hands-free Alexa features. When enabled the tablet can take voice commands like Amazon Echo devices and even replicate a more expensive Echo Show in its 'Show Mode." I found the recognition to work great and it's a welcome feature on a low cost tablet. There's also a dock available that will automatically enable "show mode" and charge the device at the same time.

For the price it's hard to go wrong here. But you do get what you pay for in some ways : the warranty is only 90 days, and the aging processor is a bit sluggish on some web pages and apps. I suspect the new operating system combined with the 'always listening' feature running in the background impacts the overall performance.

The HD10 is my current pick for Amazon tablets. If you can afford it go with that. It performs better and has a larger, nicer screen. But if you're on a tight budget this tablet is adequate for the task.

UPDATED REVIEW 10/7/2018 James in customer service worked with me for several hours and we were able to make everything work, including my 400 GB micro sd card. My suggestion to anyone having issues is to factory reset, do all the updates (both hardware and software) and then insert your sd card and format it to "portable storage" which incidentally is not the "recommended" option. Next I selected for any content able to be stored to the sd card to be stored there. After taking these steps I was able to do the following: 1. Download my kindle books with their accompanying audible narration to the sd card and either read, listen or have immersion reading, 2. Transfer my personal mobi format books to the INTERNAL storage of the kindle fire device itself in the Kindle folder. Per customer service personal books cannot be read from a micro sd card but this was not an issue for me because even after downloading all my kindle apps there was plenty of space for my mobi files. 3. Transfer my personal videos to the sd card (created a Movie folder for them ). I hope this helps!

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Disappointing. My kindle arrived yesterday and customer service is already sending me a replacement. I purchased this new kindle specifically because it claims to support up to a 400 GB compatible micro sd card. The kindle I received would not communicate with the card for kindle ebooks or audible content. This despite the card being confirmed compatible by customer service as well as the kindle screen notification that the card had formatted correctly and was ready for use.

As to the kindle itself, it performed as expected without the micro sd card installed. It is unfortunately not comparable to the Kindle Fire 7 HDX in either screen view or device speed. As others have noted it is disappointing Amazon has chosen not to produce a current version of the 2013 Kindle Fire HDX. I have used mine for 5 years but alas the screen no longer responds reliably. My Kindle Fire 10 is far superior in both aspects, but of course is limited by size and weight as well as accepting a maximum 256 GB micro sd card.

I will update this review upon receipt of the replacement kindle. I am hoping this was just a singular defective device and not a larger issue of the 400 GB micro sd card compatibility. I am curious if anyone else has had this problem.

I was surprised at how sluggish this unit is compared to the updated ipads etc. It's noticeable. I'm debating whether to return mine or not. I'd agree with the other reviewers....the screen is low to mid-grade HD at best...IMO

What you need to ask yourself is... What do you need it for? At under $100 it performs exceptionally well for streaming on WiFi, movies, music, lite games and general amazon apps. The amazon OS (operating system) is on the android platform. The tablet is ready to use right out of the box. It operates focused on Amazon content and apps. For people who wish to use more google apps some extra downloads will need to be done to access those. It’s not straight forward or user friendly to accomplish that but it can be done to do that. The screen is pleasing graphically at 8 inches. Touch screen is responsive but can lag depending WiFi connection at times. It can operate in an off line mode without Alexa. The sound with Dolby is good within a couple feet for a personal devise (better than a smart phone). It’s light weight but aquard to carry around at its size. What this tablet is... it’s an entry level (inexpensive) tablet that will do and run all the basic stuff very well and Alexa is neat to be able to help. My main gripe is that reading about the benefits for the tablet that a case for it goes into great detail, however, it is not included, nor is it a part of what is included and is a bit misleading. That having been said, I am happy with the purchase. The battery has been preforming well at lite to normal use, with a reacharge overnight. I use my cell phone to hot spot a WiFi connection to the tablet on the go and a separate Bluetooth speaker for music, which also makes movies sound better. All in all, this tablet is a great choice if you know what to expect it’s not supposed to do or be. It is 3 times cheaper than say an iPad... so, affordable and great for entertainment uses... I enjoy using it!

It freezes when I am listening and reading and does not respond to touch so I have to restart it. This is my 9th Kindle and I have had 3 Kindle Fire before all 8.9 models and they where great easy to navigate, this not so much at all. I thought it was Alexa that made it freeze so I turned it off but it still freezes. I was just listening and it stopped reading and didn't respond to touch and I had to restart. Sometimes I'm reading and listening and I wand to pause it to review a line and it freezes and I have to restart. Maybe I just got a lemon but I'm very unhappy.